Challenging Battles?

[Titanius Anglesmith]

True, Jedi can rip through common enemies, but they shouldn't be able to rip through Sith Lords. That's just the problem - in the KotOR games, they do. I don't mind a little Sith Assassin floor-wiping action, but Sith Lords should be much harder than they are.

 

Something that I'd like to see in K3 is the ability for the characters, meaning you and whoever your fighting, to automatically move around while they're fighting. It would still have the same point-and-click style combat, but the characters wouldn't be standing in one place and taking turns striking. Also, this would allow for actual lightsaber-on-lightsaber contact, where it actually looks like the person is blocking the attack.

[stoffe]

True, Jedi can rip through common enemies, but they shouldn't be able to rip through Sith Lords. That's just the problem - in the KotOR games, they do. I don't mind a little Sith Assassin floor-wiping action, but Sith Lords should be much harder than they are.

 

The problem with this would be that the Sith Lords would/should play by the same rules as your character does. However, since your character invariably will have more powerful equipment than they do, and the player (usually) will be smarter than the rather rudimentary NPC AI, this doesn't work too well. The AI doesn't know teamwork and has little situational awareness. This can in part be blamed on having a generic combat AI that is used everywhere for all types of characters, rather than a situation-specific AI for the enemies specifically written to handle each encounter.

 

In TSL, I believe a significant part of the combat difficulty (or lack thereof) problem stems from the fact that the game throws insanely powerful items at the player party at every turn, making what equipment you wear more important to the power of your characters than their own abilities, feats and skill choices. When you pit your well equipped party against enemies who in most instances only carry a (non-upgraded) weapon/lightsaber (and in some cases a simple robe or unremarkable armor) and nothing else, the odds are tilted heavily in the player's favor.

 

This makes game balancing very hard. How do you design en encounter that will be challenging to someone equipped with the best gear available, but still isn't completely impossible for someone who had worse luck with the random loot generator? I think they'd rather err on the too easy side than make things too hard and risk having a lot of annoyed customers unable to finish the game since they get killed all the time due to not playing the most min-maxed, equipment planned character imaginable.

 

 

Some of the lack of challenge can also be attributed to halfhearted scenario design. Even a pack of Sith Commandos could be a significantly bigger threat than they are if they were actively using armband shields, knew a few levels of Precise Shot, were armed with disruptors, flanked by a load of gun turrets and sniping at the player from behind a barrier of mines. You won't encounter many, if any, such planned defensive lines or carefully laid ambushes in the game.

[SilentScope001]

How could the game designers allow the player to play a character providing "the intense feeling of power you get from being able to Force Storm a group of Sith while hacking into a Dark Jedi with Master Flurry", while at the same time making combat a challenge instead of effortless grunt work you do between story advancements and quests?

 

As you say before, force the Player to choose wherter he want to use Force Storm or use Master Flurry. It would work, it would work very well, but I would hate it. I prefer an easy game rather a game that will take a long time to play. If it would be a mod, I would download it as soon as I finish K3 the first time.

 

Though, for the most part, I hope developers don't give overpowered junk next time, or make enemies a bit tougher.

[RedHawke]

In TSL, I believe a significant part of the combat difficulty (or lack thereof) problem stems from the fact that the game throws insanely powerful items at the player party at every turn, making what equipment you wear more important to the power of your characters than their own abilities, feats and skill choices. When you pit your well equipped party against enemies who in most instances only carry a (non-upgraded) weapon/lightsaber (and in some cases a simple robe or unremarkable armor) and nothing else, the odds are tilted heavily in the player's favor.

This is my core 'beef' with the D20 rules system, it is an 'items make the character' system, in short it is D&D. While D20 is fair for a fantasy setting for something like Star Wars you need a different system to handle things.

 

Some advocate the GURPS system and some the D6 system, either way for a game like Star Wars you need to emphasisie the character and not the items.

 

And before you ask... yes I do like D&D but the 'item hunt' grind can and does get to me.

[Angelos Kumani]

One way that you could "force" the choice of the force or weapon, is to make some battles dependent on using one over the other...

 

Examples:

 

If surrounded my storm troopers, it would probably be best to force wave/immobilze some before you start to hack into them.

 

But when fighting a Sith/Jedi, they would be ready for the force and you would have to rely on your skill with the saber (think of the way Mace is able to block, repel, and then turn Sidious's Force Lightning in Ep. 3)...

[Henz]

I'm fairly happy with the fights as they are. Something must have justben wrong with the programing of Nihlus... he was a wuss.

A new difficulty setting unlockable upon completion could be implemented for people up for a challenge. Or as unlockable features seem a thing of the past, downloadable content hehe. Doubles HP for enemies or whatever.

[Ctrl Alt Del]

This seems to be the core problem with any game letting the player play as a Jedi, since it seems very hard to combine those two desires since they are tied to each other. Jedi are overpowered and should be able to beat most other opponents in a straight fight. Thus combat becomes not all that challenging for the most part. You can't have a powerful, floor-wiping character who's in mortal danger in every fight; then they wouldn't really be powerful, would they? But allow them to use their power, and few enemies stand a chance.

 

Some games try to work around this situation by giving common grunts unrealistic amounts of health, or throwing huge numbers of them at the player, but that only serves to make battles last longer, not make them more interesting. Others try to work around it by adding unrealistic numbers of Sith/(Dark) Jedi who have access to the same toys as the player, but that just turns something that should be rare and special into a common grunt that loses its appeal after a while, and forces "boss" type characters into ever higher levels of munchkinism to stand out over the masses or saber-wielding force users opposing the player.

 

I understand. Of course, Im proposing the battles to be more difficulty, but the game shouldn't cease to be Kotor. Many ways to win a battle, not just defeating a enemy by facing him. Getting past a boss with stealth/conversation/persuasion/cunning is the way of Kotor, and it should remain this way.

[Jae Onasi]

This is my core 'beef' with the D20 rules system, it is an 'items make the character' system, in short it is D&D.

 

The easy solution is to either give the enemy some uber-items and make them a lot harder, or make it a lot harder for the party to find uber-items.

 

Create more situation where you _have_ to use skills and feats to get through it or to make it a lot easier--e.g. right now I can fight my way through some of the battles in Neverwinter Nights 2 with standard equipment, but my Divine Icy Alchemical Silver Longsword +5 that I spent feats and skill points to build works even better. The fiery acid arrows look very cool flying, too, but I digress....

 

Now I can't build that sword with that power until at least level 15, which makes it a little more fair in that something that powerful can't be used at lower levels (though the game certainly scatter enough other powerful weapons around anyway). Add in more activities like the one on Taris where you have to go get T3 to get into the Sith base, or have to go on some quest to learn a force power or feat instead of getting yet another ultimate diatium part. I know that fighting and action is the thing that attracts a lot of people, and players don't like their PCs to die every other turn, but there should be a greater emphasis and advantage for using those skill points and feats, and I don't think it would be that much more difficult to build into the game.

[stoffe]

Many ways to win a battle, not just defeating a enemy by facing him. Getting past a boss with stealth/conversation/persuasion/cunning is the way of Kotor, and it should remain this way.

 

Hmm, strange, I can't remind myself of very many situations of that kind in KotOR at all. Could you really talk your way out of, or bypass by stealth, any "boss" type battle in KotOR? I can't remember any such occasions.

 

Usually it's you walking along, bumping into the boss and get tossed into dialog/cutscene mode which conveniently forces you out of stealth mode. Then there is some story-related talk, the customary exchange of taunts and then you fight no matter what. Then you either kill them, or beat them down and get put in dialog mode again for some dying words or a choice of letting them crawl away.

 

The emphasis of encounters in KotOR seems to lie firmly on battle. You can't talk your way out of any significant fight, you usually can't sneak past them and even if you could you'd gain nothing by doing it since using stealth would mean you forfeit any XP and loot from the encounter, and you rarely get other benefits or long-term story implications to compensate. Choices other than deadly force, to the extent they even exist, are very poorly rewarded in the KotOR games.

[SilentScope001]

Hmm, strange, I can't remind myself of very many situations of that kind in KotOR at all. Could you really talk your way out of, or bypass by stealth, any "boss" type battle in KotOR? I can't remember any such occasions.

 

Darth Sion versus Exile battle. Break Sion's will and the Boss Battle becomes easier.

 

There is also the possiblity of counting the Genoharden subquest as also an experience in using stealth to elimante your bounties. You can just kill them in one-and-one combat, but you could also overload their Force Cages, reprogram combots...Killing them in one-and-one combat gives more XP, but killing them via stealth is more fun.

[RedHawke]

The easy solution is to either give the enemy some uber-items and make them a lot harder, or make it a lot harder for the party to find uber-items.

Thank you for making my whole point Jae (Though likely not your intention) the real solution is not to have the "uber" items in the first place.

 

I would answer the rest of your post but that would go waaaaaaay off topic.

[Sinapus]

stoffe wrote:

In TSL, I believe a significant part of the combat difficulty (or lack thereof) problem stems from the fact that the game throws insanely powerful items at the player party at every turn, making what equipment you wear more important to the power of your characters than their own abilities, feats and skill choices.

 

Pretty much. I only once had the random loot generator turn against me. Was when Mira had to free your Jedi character. Ran into an Ubese guard that was firing something inflicting Unstoppable damage at her instead of using melee weapons and she got zapped. After reloading the game, I had her rain grenades on the Ubese before he could open fire again and searched the corpse.

 

He had a Mandalorian Ripper. So it seems possible to give random goons, leaders and bosses more effective weapons. If you could make the weapons and armor not droppable, that would keep the characters from looting them off the corpses. (Let's face it, the armor of a soldier one of my Exiles and/or Revans defeats is probably not going to be very usable considering the amount of blaster and grenade damage it would take in a futile effort to protect its owner.)

 

I don't know if it's possible to give a creature weapons and armor with upgrades. IIRC, one of Redhawke's mods bypasses that by creating separate items with the stats of fully upgraded weapons and armor and assigning that to the various creatures. The Ord Mandell mod, IIRC.

 

Though I tend to run away and snipe when faced with difficult battles, or have them chase me through a minefield.

[Ctrl Alt Del]

Hmm, strange, I can't remind myself of very many situations of that kind in KotOR at all. Could you really talk your way out of, or bypass by stealth, any "boss" type battle in KotOR? I can't remember any such occasions.

 

Though someone else showed you an example of such a fight (like the cunning you show when crippling both Uthar Wynn and Yuthura Ban, on the Tomb of Naga Sadow), I must agree with you that not many fights have this possibility.

 

The emphasis of encounters in KotOR seems to lie firmly on battle. You can't talk your way out of any significant fight, you usually can't sneak past them and even if you could you'd gain nothing by doing it since using stealth would mean you forfeit any XP and loot from the encounter, and you rarely get other benefits or long-term story implications to compensate. Choices other than deadly force, to the extent they even exist, are very poorly rewarded in the KotOR games.

 

I fear you're right. I never use stealth. And when I use it, its mainly to go to a terminal and deactivate a shield protecting strong enemies, then I return and crush them.

[Jediphile]

The emphasis of encounters in KotOR seems to lie firmly on battle. You can't talk your way out of any significant fight, you usually can't sneak past them and even if you could you'd gain nothing by doing it since using stealth would mean you forfeit any XP and loot from the encounter, and you rarely get other benefits or long-term story implications to compensate. Choices other than deadly force, to the extent they even exist, are very poorly rewarded in the KotOR games.

 

Yes, but it's scarcely surprising. Most CRPGs are very old school, where role-playing is about breaking things and hurting people. The Fallout games are a notable exception in that you could actually choose a mostly non-violent or even pacifist approach throughout the entire game, though you'd have to run for it during the random encounters. How many ever played though those games like that is doubtful, though... I guess the lesson here is that computer games, no mattter how well written, has no substitute for a real, live gamemaster, which isn't surprising either.